The NRA Files Legal Challenge To California Open Carry Bans – But Not Really

In the wake of its humiliating legal defeat in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals last June which held that there is no right to carry a weapon concealed in public, NRA lawyer Chuck Michel vowed that he would file a lawsuit challenging California’s ban on openly carrying firearms in public (Open Carry).

But first the NRA filed a petition for a Full Court rehearing of the loss of its concealed carry appeal, Peruta v. San Diego in which it argued that California must ban Open Carry.

Within 48 hours of its petition being denied, the NRA filed its promised Open Carry lawsuit, sort of.

The problem is, the Complaint filed in the lawsuit spends most of its 21 pages arguing that the plaintiffs are entitled to concealed carry permits despite the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals explicitly saying that there is no right to carry a weapon concealed in public which, by the way, is what the US Supreme Court has been saying since 1897.

The NRA Files Legal Challenge To California Open Carry Bans – But Not Really

I was always skeptical of the NRA filing an Open Carry lawsuit. After all, the NRA helped write California’s 1967 ban on openly carrying loaded firearms in public and has supported restrictions and prohibitions on Open Carry ever since, both in the courts and in the California legislature.

And then there is the question as to why the NRA would file an Open Carry lawsuit given that my Open Carry lawsuit has nearly a five year head start in the courts?

My appeal will be fully briefed in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals long before there is a district court decision in the NRA lawsuit. For that matter, the NRA Open Carry lawsuit will very likely be stayed in the district court pending a decision in my appeal.

The NRA Open Carry lawsuit is filled with so many defects, it is obvious to any competent lawyer that the lawsuit will fail.

Given the vehement opposition to the Second Amendment Open Carry right the NRA has expressed in its Peruta v. San Diego concealed carry lawsuit for the better part of a decade, it would not surprise me to discover that the NRA filed this lawsuit with the intention of losing and with the objective of raising as much money as it can from the all-day-suckers who still support the NRA.

Charles Nichols is a proponent of open carry. In 2011, he filed a Federal Civil Rights lawsuit seeking to overturn California’s 1967 ban on openly carrying loaded firearms in public for the purpose of lawful self-defense. Oral argument in his case took place on February 15, 2018, before a three-judge panel of the 9th circuit court of appeals. Charles follows court cases relating to The Second Amendment and tells us what they really mean instead of what reporters, who have never read the decisions in the cases, say they mean.